The present invention relates generally to a method and system for computer aided design (CAD) of integrated circuits and in particular to characterizing a photoresist profile.
Much of the contemporary high-tech industry, with the electronics industry in particular, rests on advances in semiconductor device manufacturing, especially the micro-lithography technology. Modern semiconductor chip design and lithography practices increasingly rely upon computer simulation-based techniques, collectively called computational lithography, which uses a “mathematical model” for process development, analysis, characterization, refinement, and implementation.
There are two simultaneously desired but often contradictory needs for most computational lithography applications. One need is a reliable and accurate mathematical model that properly captures the pertinent physical and/or chemical processes, often in precise numerical agreement with the physical results. The other, need is that the same mathematical model should be amenable to efficient numerical algorithms to manipulate a large amount of design and/or process data with limited computational resources in a short turnaround time.